Extreme smokescreen over the Hammers
The Andy Carroll scenario appears to change not so much by the day as by the hour and explanations vary accordingly as the clock ticks down.
After ruling out an appearance, the manager is now saying a decision is unlikely until a late fitness test which may or may not be after the big fella has trained tomorrow.
The whole idea of course is to keep the opposition guessing until the last moment given the importance our manager places on the guy, despite a massive performance from the team last week – possibly our best of the season.
Our own information leads us still to believe that Michail Antonio will lead the attack at the start and that AC is likely to be on the bench.
That makes sense as it keep the Watford guessing game going on throughout the game as to his possible appearance!
Although Slav has mentioned the player has a small injury (groin) and David Gold had tweeted last week that he was set to play at Watford it never does any harm to build a smokescreen when circumstances allow.
However, we have been told that the injury is sorted and that it’s only a shortness of fitness which is causing a problem.
It’s an interesting sub plot to what should be an exciting Saturday evening.
The line up we’d like to see in Carroll’s absence – which we believe is the case – would be: Randolph; Byram, Reid, Fonte, Cresswell; Ayew, Kouyate, Obiang, Lanzini, Snodgrass, Antonio.